"afghan" poems
dust cloud heavy
in an apricot sky
cottonwood mucker
under ambrose pale
whippet and shepherd
mill at the earth patch
yellow birch hangs
over red bench park
combine shavings
in crack rust brown
scissors chips fall
at the back stop
whiskey jack looters
sing patented chords
siblings (and 2 wheel enthusiasts!)
give thanks
joyous retrievers
master the criss cross
bare maples stand
at settlers way
barred owl and blue jay
whistle in the fore-wind
ghosts
and goblins
pull on the seeds
wind gusts belt
over the west gulch
a blood rush churns
in the chilling fall morn
hallowed grounds still
at the midday
quiet reflections
of the afghan
and hound
jumpers unite
at the oxbow
route runners bend
(on a sultry foray!)
meadows exposed
in the framework
ball parks empty
with pennants past
barrel dirt favors
the brew house
crimson and copper
find bracken ridge gate
harvest hands savor
the honey and hops
blankets of color
for a winter's hatch
brush fire kept
under steady peruse
bark bites fly
and embers glow
pine cones drop
from the timber tops
3 wick candles
grace the dinner place
shiver and ******
at the piper's call
cob web dew
on the shadowy gates
a chilled mist mellows
the season's return ~
poets and artists
and dreamers awake
Oct 9, 2017
Oct 9, 2017 at 11:55 PM UTC
cooling whiskey flames
pool in the corners
of my eyes, drying
under the afghan
crumpled on the floor
where fallen pieces
from the puzzle of time
count off the ticks
of my grandfather clock
Jul 13, 2014
Jul 13, 2014 at 9:45 PM UTC
We're in hell
Can't you tell?
No you can't
You only listen to the teller
All other voices are drowned
Because he's a yeller
For the useless things we're bound
That fill up our cellar
And our living room turns into a dying room
When the seller is the jailer
And salvation comes from tailors
Who can cover up the pain inside
With all the comfy clothes we buy
Money is the blood of our society
It's circulation provides oxygen
But we spill money into spilling blood
And we're funneled into killing love
So we can concern ourselves
With people not getting things they don't deserve
Rather than people getting what they need
Our blood starts clotting
In the fortunate arteries
As the rest of our body goes numb
It seeks medicine for healing
And drugs become our autoimmune disease
Redistributing blood to the suffocated areas
An unfortunate recompensing for injustice
When the persecutors
Become the prosecuted
Lives are exploded
Like Afghan villages
Lives can grow back
Like poppy fields
That's the score
And it makes me want to score
Until ****** drips from every pore
And ******* fills me to the core
I could just live at the liquor store
Where benzos are my father
And **** my mother
So I can ignore the death of my brother
My family is in trouble
Our society is in rubble
Aug 23, 2017
Aug 23, 2017 at 8:14 AM UTC
The witty mother cat galloped everywhere
Everywhere and Anywhere
Just to feed her kittens' hungry tummies
For yummy food they dream, at times!
One day, the witty mother broke the gate
To a luxurious well-provided estate
Yet she could only grab a Cake,
But a full cake, mouth-watering Choco-Cake!
She hopped and jumped and rolled
Just to protect it from the Afghan Hound
And reached it for her two tiny kittens
In despair, she badly wanted it too!
So she prounounced to her kittens:
"I will cut the cake into two exact halves"
And so she cut, as carefully she can!
Awfully, one became larger and one smaller!!
Then the witty mother cat got this idea:
"Why not eat a little of the larger piece?
So, both pieces will be equal in size?"
And there went the mother cat...
Eating a little of the larger piece
She tasted the Choco-Cake in a race
Again, one went larger and another smaller!!
The witty mother cat silenty became happy...
"Why not eat a little of the larger piece?
So, both pieces will be equal in size?"Read more →
And there went the mother cat...
Giving a taste to the choco-Cake again!
And it went on this way:
Of one being smaller and the other larger,
And the witty mother cat kept eating
The Cake-piece by piece!
Atlast the cake became smaller and smaller
Yet the kittens' didn't get any!
The witty mother kept eating many
And the cake never got cut equally!
With the witty mother finishing it fully!!
Jan 6, 2013
Jan 6, 2013 at 12:41 AM UTC
When education was restricted
They ran to religion
When solace was stripped away
They ran to martyrdom
Loved ones fell
Hated ones rose
As hearts sank
To the depths of the maelstrom
Fueled by the unholy trinity
Value, vindication, and violence
Bombs decimate Afghan villages
With the precision
Of a needle hitting a vein
And as casually
As a contractor putting a dollar in his pocket
The rubble of their town
Lost in a mist of dust
The rubble of their minds
Lost in a mist of vengeance
The rabid dog chases the subjugated raccoon
The raccoon discovers a sacred hole and hides in it
The predator attempts to encroach the void
The raccoon quivers in it's sanctuary shelter
Finding relief as the hound becomes stuck
And laughs as the infected beast starves to death
But ecstasy turns to terror
As the raccoon realizes it's only way out of this hole
Is being blocked by the gargantuan corpse
Terror turns to sorrow
As the raccoon starves to death
Alone
In the dark
It's holy land now hell
For once it had protected the raccoon from unbridled rabies
But since the hound's death
It's Cerberus size obstructs all progression
Holes become graves
And prey are left to pray
For someone to drop a bomb and clear a path
Jun 7, 2017
Jun 7, 2017 at 4:45 AM UTC
A tale of adventure, A tale of strife.
A tale of wisdom, a tale of life.
In the streets of afghan, a quick learner
Enchanted by the kite runner.
A tale of loss, a tale of gain.
A tale of horror, a tale of pain.
With strife and hurt, all bestowed.
And, the mountains echoed.
As sorrow seeps,
Mariam weeps
A tale of hurt,
Out to blurt.
With arrows, bombs, axe and guns
Burnt with a thousand splendid suns.
Dec 10, 2014
Dec 10, 2014 at 1:53 AM UTC
Can't talk about, can't write about, a single thing but loving you
Don't mean to schmooze, my shameless muse, always down for aimless cruise
stare through window glass at tunnel lights that zoom straight past our heads
I walk on air, dodge solar flares, ignites my mind when I'm in bed
I can't stop, cotton to moth
brushstrokes swirl upon the backdrop
slumping over center console
dream about centaurs and scary monsters
shake me awake and tell me its okay
I know it is but it feels better that way
And I feel a nostalgia a sense of old security
the same I got when I was young and fell asleep to the TV
underneath the afghan with unwravled threads and fraying ends
hold onto me while I nitpick the same old **** inside my head
I can't stop, cotton to moth
brushstrokes swirl upon the backdrop
slumping over center console
dream about centaurs and scary monsters
shake me awake and tell me its okay
I know it is but it feels better that way
Tell me baby is it true?
Should I ride or die for you?
can I be your passenger?
or do you find me lackluster?
I can't let it be the thought of you and me
scared that our future is tragic history
and every time I find myself ready to shift gears
something holds me back, some aching type of fear
I can't stop, cotton to moth
brushstrokes swirl upon the backdrop
slumping over center console
dream about centaurs and scary monsters
shake me awake and tell me its okay
I know it is but it feels better that way
Jul 20, 2018
Jul 20, 2018 at 6:03 PM UTC
Broken Boy, Broken Boy, Please do not cry!
Your eyes is filled with terrified tears.
Can you see your father is nearby?
His eyes burns with the fury of Ares-
Causes your spirit to whimper in fear.
Like fragile porcelain dolls been shattered,
He brutally beats your bruised body-
Leaves your spirit broken and battered
Broken Boy, Broken Boy, Please do not cry!
Oh be a sweet darling good boy and listen!
Can you hear the sound of your father’s fist crunch?
Drowning in deluge of emotional distress,
Your eyes has lost its innocent glisten.
With each punch,
Your aura of gentleness gradually dies.
Your heart cold like gargoyles in fortress
Broken Boy, Broken Boy, Please do not cry!
The Broken Boy has now become a Man.
His haughty handsome face sneers with disdain.
His soul now barren as the desert of Afghan.
His subconscious mind haunted by past pain.
Lost in the wilderness of his own wrath,
His breath is drunk with the taste of violence,
Has he grown up to be a psychopath?
Broken Boy, Broken Boy, Please do not cry!
You have become a man of vendetta!
Following the footsteps of your father-
Belt your boy till his skin turns magenta-
His affection for you begins to languish.
This abuse is a never-ending cancer.
Like you, your son shall wear a mask of anger
To camouflage his heart’s suppressed anguish.
Broken Boy giving birth to another Broken Boy
Will the curse of Broken Boy ever end?
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 at 10:53 AM UTC
Tainted by the blood moon, I lay awake
Night air swept through my window and I escaped
What’s over the hill and behind the shadow?
Dreadfully that answer I already know
Nothing worth seeing, the adventures over
Some cattle fields and a lonesome hollow
But if only for a moment or so
I could remember the wonder of my childlike soul
I tossed my cold feet to the floor
Placed upon my shoulders that afghan, never worn
Set out to the hills off in the distance
That feeling of adrenaline, an adventures mistress
The old 2 lane route 302
Had became an untraveled pave way at quarter to 2
She spoke my name and the trees listened
Walnuts fell on the old tin roof of Mr. Simmons
*“Look beyond Alone,
There’s more to this road than what you think you know
Keep walking now you’re almost there
No longer will you be afraid whence you’re spared.”*
What was the night saying to me?
I wasn’t sure because it was then that I couldn’t see
So travelling the road I did proceed
Looked to the finish it wasn’t far to be
My pace was in scurry like atop was gold
But I found soon out this wasn’t so
Nothing was there waiting I need
Another lonely place as silent as she
The rolling meadows done nothing for me
Like a blind man being amongst the sea
But in the distance it came crashing on me
And my eyes were opened immediately
My house was burning that I could see
And everyone else’s on the street
Dying alone snuggled in bed
Smoke inhalation now they're dead
I watched the night turn to red
**Like the blood moon had tainted my soul
Fire roamed the street that once was home**
All the neighbors that wouldn’t speak to me
Charred to death and forever they sleep
I guess it was intuition to leave
It seems like maybe the night had saved me
And here I sit alone again
Thinking of that autumn dark, I remembered my sin
Crystal **** on a wild weekend
I killed them all and no one knows
The blood moons curse on my soul
Sep 22, 2015
Sep 22, 2015 at 9:33 AM UTC
Obama jetted
back to Africa
soaring aloft on
gulf stream swank
a posse of
oil company execs
in tow, intent on liberating
Dark Continent
fossil fuels from unjust
underground prisons
American
entrepreneurs
angling to get the
upper hand in the
high stakes global
resource poker game
pulled a big time race card
to trump China’s
full house
On Goree Island,
political paparazzi
popped and clicked
a perfect image
of the neocolonial
white clad President
framed in a doorway filled
with dark shadows and
heinous memory of the
unspeakable horrors
of global trade
leering from
the portal at the
Gate of No Return
Obama welled with
meditative epiphanies
of personal seachange,
and the vicissitudes of life,
pondering his meteoric rise
from a Land of Lincoln
State Senator to
American President
in the span of
one golden
9/11 decade
At a
South African University
Town Hall Summit,
the fist bumpin,
mike droppin Prez
telepromted the
star struck folks with
solemn universal civil rights
pronouncements,
wrapped in the riddle of
the pursuit of peace,
hidden in the enigma of
the reverence for
human dignity
Later in the day
Mr. Obama sat at the
feet of a comatose Mandela;
whispering into his ear
why an Afghan peace
eludes him, why his
drone strikes rain
death upon innocents
and why his democratic
republic defiles
the civil liberties of its
citizens to ransom
a daily diet of fear
But Madiba does not hear
Mr. Obama’s feverish
confessions; his
ears are closed,
he dreams only
of the paradise of
liberation he earned
for his life's hard wages
Music Selection:
Gil Scott Heron
Western Sunrise
Oakland
070213
jbm
Jul 2, 2013
Jul 2, 2013 at 11:14 AM UTC
it is an traditional
afghan dress
look at the bodice.
encrusted with jewellery,
history, a desire to buy
is curtailed, only by
the price. i have
searched ebay for another,
more affordable, yet tis
this one, i love.
i can visit, touch
and take photographs.
the afghan dress
is £125, will not fit
me. that will not
stop me
liking.
sbm.
Dec 18, 2014
Dec 18, 2014 at 2:24 AM UTC
Why can't we all just get along?
Maybe if we all just hit a ****
Bhatiboys, bald heads, reggae mons too
Open your minds, and see what JAH can do
Rioters and looters fighting with cops
Roll up some ****** and the violence stops
Terrorist blowing up the middle east
Some Afghan kush would bring them all peace
If Escobar sold **** not ***** cocaina
Then the whole world would be a lot greena
We are all JAH's children, so lets all get along
Maybe we could, if we all ripped a ****
Sep 26, 2016
Sep 26, 2016 at 9:19 PM UTC
You leave that dismal room
And walk
Past open doors
And broken clock
Down dingy corridors
You creep
While strangers
In strange rooms find sleep
You walk on carpet
Stained and fading
Designs all ruined
Yet not abating
Out where the housekeeper’s
Cart is parked
Her smile sunken
Her manner dark
She emerges from
Behind a stack
Of ***** blankets
Folded back
With broken teeth
And burdened eyes
Wrinkles worn
In plain disguise
Someone’s daughter
Whittled down
Her hair too thin
Along her crown
Yet harboring
A warmth untouched
Her shattered image
Says too much
Windows open
On a courtyard scene
Junkies nodding
In the sun serene
High altitude
Of Denver streets
Smell ***** smoke
And searing meats
In Civic Park
The men that stare
Sell rough-cut gems
Which slice the air
One calls you over
With his hand
More incantation
Than command
Says that he’s got
Just what you need
With eyes now begging
To be freed
You walk away
And in his strife
He calls to you
“I’ve lived my life!”
With eyes as dark
As afghan hash
He fades away
As you move past
In distant vistas
Where the Rockies lie
You hear that unknown
Ancient cry
You feel the motion
You must move on
The mountains are calling
The city is gone
Feb 21, 2016
Feb 21, 2016 at 2:58 PM UTC
The Mujahideen fight for their way of life
They simply want to practice their religion
Follow their religion
And live in peace
The Soviets have no right to invade
And tell them how to live
Rocket propelled grenades
Were effectivey used at the Kandahar pass
Soviet tanks were sitting ducks
They met their end
Guerilla fighters
Walk and fight in the mountains
They mastered the ambush
The Battle of Arghandab
The Soviets attacked
An entrenched Mujahideen
The Afghan government forces often defected to the resistance
Some Soviet aircraft
Were shot down by Stinger missles
Provided by the U.S.
The Russian people were lied to
About what their military was doing there
They were told they were nation building
The war caused around one million civilian deaths
And the emigration of 5 to 10 million Afghans
May 24, 2015
May 24, 2015 at 11:27 PM UTC
She Is Never Far Away
*I wonder what she would say
If she were sitting here today
Would she tell us that her pain was gone
That God had taken it away
Would she tell us stories of the past
Or of what our future holds
Give a glimpse of what's in store
And say she met the Lord
Would she know how much we miss her
Miss the love that she once gave
Tell us that although she's gone
She's now in a better place
Would she sit and talk for hours
Give advice on what to do
Crochet an afghan blanket
Then say this one's for you
Would she say she sees her father
Her mother stands there by her side
She feels the sorrow that we have
But must walk into the light
Would she say she knows our love for her
Hears the prayers each night we say
That she will always be our mom
And she is never far away*
In Memory for my mother
M. Yvonne Roberts
1938 to 2014
Poem by Carl Joseph Roberts
I love you Mom
Walk in peace with the prince of peace.
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 8:04 AM UTC
Migrant refugee
a place of temporary
community is everything for
The Afghan, Syrian, Iranian and Africans of all
from the jungle they came, to The Jungle they go.
A place to pass through hope
to go over to Dover and
beyond. Think so fond
of the other side.
Work, new life, peace
and family they seek.
On a journey to travel, men,
women and kids flee from
an evil chasing their race.
They stare death in its
face the whole way.
To leave it all behind in hope
to find that which is true.
Some French help, some unsure,
others come from afar
to serve and ask
"What can I do?"
to find there is nothing but to see.
Some pray and some say
"I will not stay"
after months of waiting
to leave with no more tricks in
their sleeve, oh Lord when
will they believe in this Jesus
who sets all free.
Jun 20, 2016
Jun 20, 2016 at 1:46 AM UTC
Every time you lay me down on an afghan
It's like you're deflowering me again
Your lips against mine, so sweet and so soft, just us two
Skin to skin, you touch me and I melt into you
These positions are very tricky
With every one, you leave a hickey
Our hands intertwined
Reminds me you're mine
You nibbling on my ear
Makes me feel the end is near
Though I don't want his feeling to end
You slowly make my back bend
Jan 15, 2018
Jan 15, 2018 at 6:22 PM UTC
Considerably penalties
For early withdrawal.
Sending more advisors.
Vietnam redux 1954.
Reactionary by poll #s.
Afghan half stand.
Unemployment
Slow Redeployment.
You pick.
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 1:11 PM UTC
There's a turning point on my tongue when I realize who you really are.
You appear to me in macaroni art, in fingerpaintings, in cracked iPhone screens.
I dream you in refrigerator word magnets / I read you in my favorite novel from age 13 and cry about it.
Your self-portrait is etched in my bottom-bowl bulimia at 2:07 AM. And guess what?
(I'm not entirely convinced that you didn't come crafted from the sea, slimy and sultry and green trails or tails surfacing to hold hands and jigsaw your human form.)
At night, I see lines of caterpillars leading from your belly button to be your matter. Excuse me? I am going through your life with a fine-toothed comb and knitting an afghan out of your DNA.
Drumroll, please! / I've got it -
You are 47 Autumns. You Are exactly as You Were.
Nov 7, 2013
Nov 7, 2013 at 10:43 PM UTC
The Afghan army insisted things
Were more secure in 2013
But they had to close down the schools
One man said the Taliban threatened to attack the schools
Now the men fight with Soviet era weapons
The American troop levels reduced
In one village
The people can farm and work freely
Because of patrols by the Afghan police and
The police took over the patrols after the Americans left
The police report what is going on to the military
The people want clinics and schools
To be built
The army leaves day to day security
In the hands of the National Police
The Police Chief says
They have gained the trust of the local people
And they discuss how to punish the warlords
May God be with the national army and police force
May they protect the people and keep them safe
Some Afghans
Living in Pakistan
Were forced to return to Afghanistan
After a school was attacked in Peshwar, Pakistan
The Afghans suspect
That local officials are taking advantage
Of the situation
To expel unwanted refugees
More than 33,000 undocumented Afghans returned from Afghanistan
In the first six weeks of 2015
Even some registered refugees
Have been driven out of Pakistan
Many returning Afghan families have nowhere to go
In Jalalabad, the closest big city
On the Afghan side of Torkham
Families pitched tents along a canal
Lacking any other resource
Their children pulled turnips from a nearby field
The most reliable source of food
One woman is worried
How her children will fare
They no nothing of the country
And what it is like
Their is great mineral wealth in that country
Perhaps that is the main reason why
The U.S. has plans to stay there
For an extended period
I doubt life for the Afghan will ever get better
Or be more secure
The Taliban are there to stay
33% of people live below the poverty line
I doubt that figure will ever improve either
Even if the country prospers from their mineral deposits
The common man won't benefit
Well, that's just how the cookie crumbles
In Afghanistan
Feb 26, 2015
Feb 26, 2015 at 10:52 AM UTC
"Don't work with the Americans."
"Don't help the Americans."
This is what some of the Afghan interpreters are saying
After their poor treatment by the United States government
The Afghan Interpreters are angry
And they have a right to be
After most U.S. troops have left
Some are stuck hiding in Kabul
The Taliban tell the local people
That they are infidels
The Taliban **** many interpreters
The Afghan Interpreters struggle
Only about 30% get their visa
Some only have enough money
To make it to Greece
They live together
Barely any money
No hot water
Persecuted by the local police
One interpreter saved the life of an American soldier
The soldier helped him put together his visa packet
His visa took three years!!!
This interpreter had fought with them for 7 years
Had saved the lives of five American soldiers
Had been the personal interpreter for 12 U.S. senators
One interpreter
Did not leave on a flight approved by the U.S.
He had to leave on the next flight
Because the Taliban was threatening to **** him
Thankfully the U.S. soldier
Had a place for him to stay
And could give him some money
The soldier promised him
He would help him get resettlement benefits
Even though the U.S. government stated
He was not eligible to receive his benefits
Because he did not arrive on a U.S. approved flight
The Vice Interviewer
Learns from the lawyers working for the interpreters
That there is a massive bureaucracy
The Department of Defense doesn't consider them veterans
The soldier tried to get a bill introduced
That would streamline the process
And increases the number of visas
To help the Afghan Interpreters
No legislation regarding immigration was introduced
Because of bickering among Republican members
The program ran out in September of 2014
So now thousands will be stuck in Afghanistan
One interpreter that was interviewed
Was stuck in Afghanistan
Working as a taxi driver
Fearing for his life
Many of the Taliban prisoners
Have been released
Now he fears for his life
He doesn't know what will happen
6,000 applicants
For 280 available visas
As of July 2014
May God bless the Afghan interpreter
Trying to live his life in peace
May God bless the Afghan people
It seems things never change for them
Feb 26, 2015
Feb 26, 2015 at 12:51 PM UTC
America is still at war
We're all scared and poor
Military spending goes through the roof
Tax payer money vanished like ****
They tell us it's Osama
But I blame Obama
We all know what you're looking for down in the Middle East
It's that good afghan kush that you're after; not peace!
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 4:58 PM UTC
She brushed out landscapes with her words
as deftly as any impressionist master
and speed-trekked us from where we sat
to scenes of transcendent beauty.
Each day I awaited her verbal canvases
with self-indulgent anticipation.
But one day all was all different.
What was this horrific account of
of unspeakable Afghan tragedy -
A wandering woman whose final defeat,
after all she loved had been butchered,
was hope beyond all recovery
dragging her feet through the dust?
I picked up my heart from out of the soil
to ask her, "were you there?"
She was - with a physician's bag
for Cindy is a doctor
who eschews a suburban clinic
to defy all danger
and be where life would fail
without her healing craft and care.
Dodging bullets, sputum and mortal threats,
Cindy fights life's most essential battles
and so uplifts the standard of our species.
The next day Cindy painted for us
a verdant mountain scene
whose whispering streams and fragrance
exceeded all I'd every witnessed.
I wonder where she is.
September, 2013
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 1:13 PM UTC
We met
In a deserted street
In Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, In the next incarnation.
Thereon,
A tee shirt , with the legend
“The lovers in this incarnation
Belonged to two populations
That were at war in the last one”
Walked by.
I realized that day
That your gaze
Was a bullet
Of hatred and vengeance
Left over from unabated fury
Even after firing six times that day
And you told me
That my words
Were like
The satisfaction of chopping repeatedly,
A body long dead
Still,
When you saw popcorn on the wayside,
Why did you offer to get it?
Why did you coo, ‘what’s wrong, dear’ when I sighed?
I am clueless!
you asked
How we separated
The first time it was because the flame flared up
When lighting a taper
Once it was because the phone rang while kissing.
There was some stain on my shirt when we met in a dream
.....
.......
For asking
For not asking
For calling, not calling,
For sighing,
For laughing, for whimpering,
For crying, for eating, for not eating,
For sending, for not wishing to send,
For going to the toilet
Without asking permission
For saying a prayer for mother and children
Must have died together on that day.
The anxiety was not
About who would look after you
If I died first,
But who all will look at you!
Must have killed
If not that, God would have interfered
Whatever the rock on which it is built,
God would upset it with an earthquake if nothing else.
God and His strange ways!
In the Afghan capital city of Kabul,
It is the same us who killed with love in this fashion
When you exclaimed
“How lovely this city is”,
I lighted another cigarette
This time, another tee shirt
With the legend “I am not even born”
Passes by
I remembered
The two lines you told me
in the last incarnation,
Four days before Christmas,
A Thursday evening,
At 5:41.
I laughed without telling you that.
You gave me a kiss.
Author Notes
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 28, 2013 at 10:32 AM UTC